Shifting Sands
by CodyLabs
Summary: Some of the deeper mysteries of Gravity Falls, such as the story of the Crashed ship and the origin of the shapeshifter, are revealed through a narrative that follows a monster named [[REDACTED]], and how she was kidnapped, experimented upon, freed, cursed, and hunted. This serves as a sort of prequel/sequel to the Forest of Daggers, although it stands just fine on its own.
1. The 4-Minute War

_Author's Note:_

My main fanfiction, the Forest of Daggers, had several long sections at the end of its final chapters which were written entirely in code. I thought it would be a fun little thing that people would be able to crack easily, but it turns out that there were a lot of people who didn't know how to do so, and still wanted to read these hidden sections of the story, but weren't able.

I felt bad about that, and relented. So now here's this story decoded.

It is an entirely separate story that follows the journey of the main story's chief villain, and why and how she did the things that she did. Although it intersects in several places with the Forest of Daggers story, this is an entirely standalone story, and you can read it with no prior knowledge. There are some things which may be confusing or random, but not too bad.

Anyway, long-awaited secret ancient tragedy of an eldritch alien... GO!

* * *

Long, long ago, and far away.

In an age of blood and steel, where animals talked as men, and strange riddles were whispered in the dark, one war among many came to an end. A small tribe of warriors had triumphed in their grim toil, and rose to victory above the empires and the agents which sought to destroy them. By the blood of countless innocents, they won for themselves a land of peace and plenty, and decided to call it their home. There, they constructed a village out of crude materials and laid down their deadly weapons, hoping to put behind them all the war and the bloodshed of their youths. They took to living as hunters and fishers, as if to pretend that cruel instincts no longer inhabited their minds and bodies. They looked to each other, and began to love and mate, in the manner of simple folk.

But had they really put such ways behind them? In order to prove their change of heart, God sent to them a test: an enormous spacefaring vessel came hovering down to visit their planet. It was a fight they could not win, against an enemy that would not attack unprovoked. To continue their peaceful lives, all they had to do was treat this invader with dignity and goodwill.

But that was not the path they chose. Instead, they unanimously elected to exterminate the invaders. As soon as the spacecraft sent down its first explorers, the tribe attacked with all their might. But it was to no avail, for the invaders responded in turn, using powerful weapons to instantly decimate the village and its inhabitants, a massacre started and ended in less than 4 minutes. It served (unintentionally on the invaders' part) as a justice for the evil in the peoples' hearts, to avenge the dead innocents. They had failed the test and proven themselves evil until the end.

Now creatures armed with strange tools descended from the vessel, accompanied by silent, round, floating guards. They began to roam the countryside in an ever-increasing radius, looking to both satisfy their curiosity for the unknown, and stamp out any remaining pockets of resistance.

In a nearby field, two of the last survivors crouched behind a smallish rock, watching the proceedings in shocked awe.

And so begins the tale of ███████. Her tale is one which nobody knows and has never been told, for in order to hear it, one would have to piece together a labyrinth of rumors and memories of the dead. The origin of its transcription here is not known, but it has proven accurate. Let the curious read and be satisfied.

* * *

"What do we do?" ███████ asked.

"I don't know…" Her mate peeked out from behind the rock once more, squinting his tired eyes. "I don't know…"

The war, (if you could call it that,) had finished its first day, and now the night had come. The strange creatures still roamed where the village used to be, poking and prodding, driving tools into the ground, sampling fluid from trees and roots, sweeping the area with lights. It was hard to see from this distance, but it seemed that they were collecting _things_. Lots of things. Anything strange, anything interesting, anything alive. Anything they could find.

███████ looked at him, and he looked back at her, and they shared a moment of hopelessness, as they knew that they couldn't hide forever. "We can't run." He whispered to her, and his voice had an edge to it. "As soon as we move, they'll just give chase…"

She huddled up close to him. "So we _fight_." She whispered back. "If we take out a few of them, take out the scanning ones, divert their attention elsewhere, strike them where they are weak. _Then_ we can run."

"But we can't fight…" He assessed. "You saw what they did to the village…"

"The larger weapons probably need time to come to bear." She reminded him. "Besides, we can fight better, and wiser. Strike quietly, and from nowhere, trick them into thinking we are somewhere else, and make them afraid to attack, for fear of hitting their own men. They aren't equipped for dealing with our skills." She kept her voice confident, for his sake. "I know we can do it."

"You…" He glanced over one more time. "You really think so?"

"I know so. You take the 6 on the left, I'll take the 6 on the right. Together we can win."

"…Okay." He finally agreed. "On three, okay?"

"And in case we don't get a chance later…" She pulled him close and gave him a brief, passionate kiss. "Know that I will always love you. To the ends of the world and beyond. Always."

"Always." He agreed. "One…"

"Two…" She nodded.

" _Three_." They said together.

He shapeshifted into the form of a large, fearsome predator, and leapt over the rock, teeth and claws flashing in the moonlight. Headlong he rushed for the 6 on the left.

But ███████ didn't go for the 6 on the right. Instead she used the distraction, shifted into the form of a small, speedy animal, and ran the other way.

It was a cruel and terrible thing to do, but _she had no choice._ They couldn't run without a distraction, and they couldn't have a distraction without a fight. So the only way, the _only_ _way_ for one of them to survive would be for the other to sacrifice themselves. And so she made the most difficult choice of all, and left her beloved mate to die.

And betraying him hurt her, hurt worse than she imagined it could. But this was survival. This was desperation, as it had been in days of war. She couldn't spare her life for another, no matter how much she loved him. As she heard the fight escalate and end behind her, as she heard his dying cry, she drowned her love and sorrow and guilt beneath the overpowering, singular certainty that it was _necessary._

She would survive.

So she ran and she ran.

She didn't run fast enough.

And they caught her.


	2. Hungry and Alone

It was true, ███████ had loved him.

She had relished the thought of spending the rest of her life with him, working with him, fighting with him, resting with him… Perhaps they could raise a child together, raise a family; a breed that would grow larger and stronger and more powerful, until the future would be secure for her children, and they could inhabit a world of their own… It was a dream they had shared, and dream they had loved, as much as they'd loved each other.

But he was dead now.

He was dead.

And where was she?

The fog of unconsciousness slowly lifted and she opened her eyes, to take her first good look at her new home.

It was a narrow, cylindrical prison, whose tall, smooth walls were broken only by a small metal nipple, likely where food would be dispensed. And the floor was sloped inward like a shallow cone, toward a drain covered in fine mesh; likely meant to collect her urine and waste. She sat up and moved around the room, and found it to be so small that she could touch both sides at once.

She peered closely at the round walls, and found that they were slightly transparent; as if she were living inside a gigantic test tube. Outside the tube stood long lines of other tubes in various sizes, and in between there were workbenches, lab equipment, and strange, tentacled creatures at work.

She recognized these creatures; they were the same which had invaded her world; the same which had descended from the sky to roam with carefree audacity; the same which had killed her people; the same which had killed him. As the minutes ticked by and they paid her no notice, she watched them and their actions closely, and with dark intent.

It quickly became clear to her that these particular creatures were neither conquerers nor warriors, in fact they were nothing more than scientists, working to analyze and understand all the things they had found. They seemed excited, utterly enamored with their work and their curiousity and the spelendid results of their strange tests. Though the methods by which they'd acquired their subjects had been savage and cruel, they either didn't know or didn't care.

Eventually they came down the line to her tube, and began to test her.

They stuck small tools into her prison to poke and prod her. Tissue samples were taken. Wires were laid over her scalp to scrutinize her mind. Thermal, x-ray, and molecular displacement imaging gave them views and graphs of every square milimeter of her body. Some of the tests hurt. Some of them were invasive. Some of them left her tired and angry.

But through it all, she never gave up her resolve and her calm. And as the minutes ticked by and turned into hours, and the hours faded in and out and turned into days, she watched them. She watched them just as closely as they watched her. She watched them like a bird watches prey, like a gunslinger watches a challenger, like a detective watches the movement of a shadowy enemy. She listened to their language, and she watched their gestures and their behaviors, and she came to understand them. She determined the scope and purpose of their work, and the size and complexity of this ship, and that her own planet wasn't the first to receive such treatment.

She eventually came to understand them perfectly.

And she hated them.

Long before the tests had completed, while she was still in the midst of her pain, when she was feeling as small and as helpless as she ever had been, she looked out at her enemies, and made her decision.

She made an oath.

She swore upon his soul that she would avenge him. She swore that she would overcome all these foul things; scientists, soldiers, monsters, aliens, and entire armies… She swore that she would _grow— Grow_ until she became the QUEEN of this vessel, and that she would KILL every single man, woman, and sniveling child that lived onboard…

She swore it. Upon his memory, and upon all the dreams that they had dreamt, she swore it. And when she had her opportunity, when security went lax, when all was quiet and they all had their backs turned… She would act upon it.

It was only a matter of time.

And meanwhile, she would survive.

* * *

"Your biological signature doesn't match with any of the other creatures in here, and our neurological scans indicate that you likely possess some degree of sentience. Moreover, you haven't responded to the tests as an animal would, leading us to believe that you are intentionally hiding your abilities and intelligence… But… But we're not here to hurt you. We really aren't, I want you to understand that. We just want to know you. We're curious, right? You know what curious is, don't you…? So… So if you can understand me, or if you're comprehending anything I'm saying, please give some sort of sign… I really don't mean you any harm…"

███████ looked up at Dr. &R/\BJ as he talked, and she understood perfectly. Somehow the 'universal translator' (or whatever he called that device) seemed to be communicating directly into her brain, so that the meaning behind Dr. &R/\BJ's nasally, muttering voice was impossible to miss. But she didn't respond yet. In order for this to go her way, he had to get _him_ to trust _her_. She had to get him to let his guard down.

"Please, a sign. Any sign at all, really…" He coaxed. "You know, we had you stored with the unintelligent cargo, down in the lower levels. If you prove to actually be a sentient being, we could upgrade your situation with certain accommodations; full-sized quarters, visitors, a variety of meals… You don't seem to like the algal paste, but we can fabricate meat as well, or… Or sweets? Do you like sweets? Candy…?"

This was one of the scientists who probed her (did they think she couldn't recognize him?). But unlike the others, Dr. &R/\BJ seemed kind. She'd heard him object to a few of the more invasive tests, he'd dropped little treats into her feeding tube from time to time, and he'd asked the higher-ups over and over for the chance to speak with her directly. He really was an honest, well-meaning, kindly old man, without any malicious intentions for the creatures he studied.

"Really…" He once again repeated. "Really, I do want what's best for you… Do you… Do you have a name? Have a gender? Something you want? Any questions for me? Are you the same species as the hostiles which attacked our exploration team…?"

She glanced at the other scientists, as if she was afraid of them. Dr. &R/\BJ frowned, recognizing her body langauge. "Uh… Uh, would you mind stepping out of the room for a moment, gentlemen…?" He encouraged his colleagues, while turned away from the microphone. "I, uh… I have an idea. I think she's just scared."

They did as instructed, and Dr. &R/\BJ turned back to her. "We're alone now…"

"…My… My name… My name is ███████." She spoke in her native language, to disguise the full extent of her intelligence.

"Uh…" Dr. &R/\BJ seemed shocked. "Well hello!" He beamed. "I-i-it's so very nice to meet you, ███████! That's a very lovely name, uh… I'm so glad you decided to trust me…"

"You're a nice man…" She used a small timid voice, like that of a lost girl, to disguise her malice. "I'm sorry I didn't talk, I was just so scared, and I wanted to hide… Are… Are my mom and dad in here too?"

He glanced around nervously for a second. "Ah… Well, no… No, I'm sorry, but your mother and father… Umm… Didn't make it. But we're all nice people here! We're not going to hurt you! You can have a new home here…"

All his words were lies, but she pieced together some scraps of truth. _So the ship must have left our world. We must all be alone now, out in the mysterious void. There is no help for me, but there is also no help for them…_ "Umm…" She shuffled her feet. _I need more information. I need layouts of decks, engines, chains of command. I need out._ "So… What is this place exactly?"

The kind scientist wasted no time in organizing a tour, so eager was he to foster communication and goodwill with this newly-discovered intelligent lifeform. He had her placed in a much thinner, portable container, and escorted her through the low-security areas of the ship, showing her this and that, explaining how the gravity drive worked, and the hyperdrive, and the gyroscopes and the improbability correction dynamos. And she asked timid little stupid questions which he answered to the best of his ability.

When there was finally no more to be gained through talk, she acted. She shapeshifted for the first time since her entrapment, taking on a form strong enough to break through the glass.

She ripped Dr. &R/\BJ's throat out. She also killed 6 more people who happened to be standing nearby, and sprayed a toxic slime around to deter pursuers. She ate her fill from the bodies (it was so good to have meat again), then ducked into the ventilation system, where she had a chance to shift into the form of a different scientist, and compose herself while she prepared to properly infiltrate the crew.

But the sector went into lockdown much faster than she expected, the ventilation ducts sealed off, and the silent, floating guards came. Although these round, staring machines were rather stupid in their own right, she couldn't fool their biometric sensors; they were well equipped to see through her disguise. So, before their many weapons, she surrendered and let herself be delivered back to the tube.

It seemed like a step back, but it wasn't, for during her brief stint of freedom, she had learned much. Learned of the capabilities of her enemies, and something of their weaknesses. As the weeks changed into months, and as the poking and prodding and probing continued without cease, her plans evolved and grew. From her time out there, she put together methods to outwit the drones, to bypass lockdowns, to kill even more people.

She knew how.

She would survive.


	3. Natives of Evil

"Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about." A new creature stood in the lab, staring into her tube. A tall, important-looking, proud specimen that fiddled its right tentacle like a nervous tick. "It isn't even very big."

"She can get bigger, Captain." One of the scientists replied. "We're not quite sure how, but she was in the form of a full-grown scientist when the drones recaptured it…"

"Oh really?" The Captain blinked. "One of you?"

"Me, sir. She took my from." Dr. Zlfo]n raised his tentacle.

"Huh… So what else can it shapeshift into?" The Captain bent closer to her tube, and looked right into her eyes. "Anything it sees?"

"We're not sure, sir. She's been… Uncooperative. The recent breach was the only time we've ever directly seen her display the ability, although… Although others of her species displayed remarkable capability during the attack…"

"Hmm… Hey! Hey you! Creature!" The Captain tapped on the glass. "Mimic something! …How about this? Can you mimic this?" He made a face, rolled his eyes outward and stuck out his tongues. He glanced back at the men after an uneventful moment of silence. "…Can it understand me?"

"No sir. The translator circuit isn't even on."

"Heh heh…" The Captain chuckled. "So how did it breach containment anyway?"

"The, uh… The late Dr. &R/\BJ lowered security measures in order to show her around the ship. Her container must have been mishandled, and allowed to shatter…"

"Hmph! And what could have possibly possessed that old fool to allow something so hairbrained?"

"We believe he… Struck up a friendship of some type with her, sir. He sent everyone out of the room to make her feel more at ease, so we never got the particulars."

"Well, that was certainly preventable, now isn't it?" The Captain scoffed, putting his tentacles on his hips. "I'm running a _science vessel_ here, men. Not a _nursery_. From now on, I expect no such mistakes. No unmonitored communication with intelligent specimens, no unnccessary transfer of specimens between containers, no undue consideration for specimen desires. And that's all they are; specimens. Understood?"

"Yes sir." They all chorused.

"And as for this one…" He turned back to her tube. "Hmm… How _well_ did it mimic Dr. Zlfo]n?"

"As far as we could tell, it was an exact physical match…" Dr. Zlfo]n admitted. "Save for some alternative chemistry, and of course the microscopic details."

"…You know, we could sell these." The Captain mused. "Spies, agents, soldiers, circus performers, the like… A lot of people would pay top money for this kind of thing. Pity we only have one… Can we clone it?"

"Unlikely, sir. It constantly shifts its DNA patterns, even in its base form. If we tried to clone a sample, we'd just as likely end up with an incomplete portion of one of its mimicry forms. We believe that microscopic adaptation on the _protein level_ is a foundational function of its—"

"Oh, Lord, spare me." The Captain motioned the scientist to silence. "So you're saying we _can't_ clone it, and it's too dangerous to contain. It's of no use to us, then. _Jettison it_."

"SIR!" The youngest scientist, Dr. cl;**4, spoke up. "Sir, I don't know if killing her is the best idea…"

"Oh?" The Captain spun on him. "And what might you suggest?"

"Well…" The young man's voice faltered. "Well, we could… We could lock her in a passenger dorm to keep her happy; those are airtight, so she couldn't get out, and… Or… Or we could send her back to her homeworld…"

"Ohhhh, okay. Okay I see." The Captain scoffed. "You suggest we _waste_ an automated prison droid sending it _aaaall_ the way back across the galaxy… Or we waste space and money by _giving it_ a whole _plethora_ of commodities reserved for _paying_ passengers…"

"Well…" Dr. cl;**4's eyes fell, and he stuttered. "O-o-or… Or keep her here and keep a better eye on her, I-I-I mean, it just seems like a bad idea to… Kill her… You… I mean, you… Uh… Never mind."

"I what?" The Captain moved closer to him. "What were you about to say?"

"Nothing sir. Never mind."

"Were you going to give me a warning of some type?" The Captain prodded. "Remind me of something? Yeah, that's it, isn't it. You were going to remind me of a warning. What was it?"

"Nothing. Sir."

"Come now, son." The Captain's voice got low and cold, even silently threatening, as he put a tentacle around cl;**4's torso. "Come now. Don't be afraid to speak your mind. We are men of science, aren't we? And science isn't afraid of a few inconvenient or uncomfortable claims, no matter how groundless they may be. Come now, _scientist_. State your _hypothesis_."

"The… The…" cl;**4's voice was very quiet. "The… The _oracle_. Sir."

"The _oracle_." The Captain nodded. "The oracle who threatened great harm to my ship and my person… Threatened _divine judgement_ , so to speak. If I continued to 'treat innocent lifeforms as commodities and property in the manner of soulless beasts' then something like a 'great calamity of unforeseeable consequence and perfect untiy with the almighty purposes' would befall something-or-another… I believe that was something like the wording she used, wasn't it?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Yeah, well, anyway. You…" The Captain let his gaze wander across the faces of the assembled science team (none of whom, surprisingly, had laughed or so much as scoffed at the younger man's worries.) " _You_..." He repeated. "Are men of science. You have a job to do, tests to run, papers to cite, knowledge to obtain, and time not to waste. The oracle can talk all she likes, and you can listen all you like, but I'm afraid I can't have you making decisions based on primitive hogwash. Any more than I could use a _dowsing rod_ to steer my ship. Understood?"

"Yes sir." The science team nodded as one.

"And as for this…" He finally turned his attention back to ███████'s tube. "I suppose you can keep it if you want; that is, if you reason your superstitions are worth the danger. Because hey, it's not _my_ lab, is it? Oh wait, that's right: it _is_. _Any_ damage comes out of _all of your_ pay. You have fun now."

And with a pompous flair, the Captain turned and strode out of the lab.

The scientists turned back to their work. "The oracle's made prophecies before." One of them muttered, after a few minutes of silence.

"Shut up." Another one mumbled back.

"And she's _always_ been _right_ … Why do you think we keep her around?"

"Shut _up_."

"If she _isn't_ a prophet of the Creator God, then I don't know wha—"

"I _said_ shut up!"

"Fine. Geez…"

From the edge of the room, from within her tube, ███████ listened to all these things. She understood every word that was said, and she found it all quite fascinating, and adjusted her plans.

She looked forward to her next escape from the tube.

She looked forward to talking with the 'oracle'.

She looked forward to killing the Captain.

And it would all happen, just as she planned.

She would survive.

* * *

"Hello, subject 148, this is Dr. cl;**4…" The young man with the rebellious heart rubbed sleep from his eyes as he spoke into the translator. "So… You understand me, right?"

A nod.

"Good… Uh… Why did you kill those men?"

She shied away from him.

"How about Dr. &R/\BJ? Why'd you kill him? You two seemed friendly…"

She covered her face with her hands. "I'm sorry…" She responded.

"'Sorry'…? Really? Yeah sure, you're 'sorry'. But there's a lot that 'sorry' can't make right…"

"You saved my life." She told him.

"Huh?"

"I… I can understand a little of your language." She admitted. "Just a little… And I heard that your leader wanted to kill me, but you saved me… You… Even after what I did, you stood up for me…"

"Oh…" Dr. cl;**4 frowned at her. "Yeah… I guess I did. Just seemed like the right thing to do I suppose… I mean, you might not have known what you were doing… Or maybe you did… Did you?"

"I knew I was killing them…" She whispered. "I… I thought you were all my enemies." Her tone and body language were carefully bashful, remorseful. "I saw you invade, I saw you kill my friends… I thought if I killed a few then I could escape, I… I thought you were all liars and murderers…"

Dr. cl;**4 scoffed. "Yeah… Honestly, yeah… We're… Well, it's no secret that we're all about sick of the Captain… A lot of the things we're doing… I tell you what, you couldn't have been abducted by a worse ship. But… But that was it? You just thought it was self defense?"

"I thought it was…"

"We're not all bad. Dr. &R/\BJ wasn't bad; I'm not bad, I don't think. Most of us are pretty decent. It's just… It's just this work."

"Back on my world…" ███████ ventured. "I had to go out every morning and milk the 7$#ML4da**… And I never wanted to milk them, and they never wanted to be milked, but it was my job and we needed to eat… I guess it's the same way for you, isn't it?"

"Yep… That's… That's just how it is."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay… And… We really do want a happy ending here. We don't want you stuck in this tube forever. Things are going to change, so… Yeah. Just don't kill any more people, okay?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry… I won't."

"Okay…"

"Also…" She spoke up. "May I speak to the priest you mentioned…?"

"The oracle…? Uh…" cl;**4 blinked. "I don't see why not…"

These scientists really weren't all bad.

Not nearly. There were some bad ones, but many more were decent. And their decency would be their downfall, for they would allow her to live, and they would trust her, confide in her, maybe even befriend her.

She would feed their distrust of their captain and of each other.

And she would survive.

* * *

"Hello ███████"

███████ arose from her sleep to behold a new creature standing in the room, which she paused to regard for a moment or two.

This one was unique. It didn't have the mannerisms of a soldier or a scientist or an officer. Indeed, it seemed to share nothing in common with the rough, cold, metallic world around it. Its thin, grey face and fingered hands set it apart from the tentacled others, and its long, plain cloak with its careful stitching and earthy colors seemed almost to have been plucked from an older, humbler chapter of history. And its seven eyes sparkled with a quiet, warm sorrow, as if it had witnessed the end of all that it knew, and did not mourn the loss.

This was an alien among aliens. A creature out of time and place.

The oracle.

"You understand me even without the translator." The oracle said. "Don't you."

███████ blinked.

"Thus we may speak candidly." The oracle smiled. "They are not listening."

"…Oracle." ███████ smiled. "It is truly a pleasure to meet someone of your-"

"Don't give me that. You see me as nothing but a tool." The oracle put her hands on her hips. "You seek not my doctrine nor my wisdom or my warnings; I am a crystal ball to you. You wish only to know the future."

"…I would like to hear any words you have to say." ███████ answered carefully.

"Of course you would." She shrugged. "So long as they are preaching doom and damnation upon your enemies, destruction and fire upon this ship… A woman who speaks mysteries is a novelty, but at the end of the day, people only listen to what they want to hear… Although the answer is _yes._ This ship _will_ crash. It _will_ be brought down, to a place of such gravity that no man will be able to raise it back up."

"…Why doesn't the captain believe you?"

The oracle sighed, and spread her robes to show her wrists. They were bound in metal shackles. "I am but a prisoner as well." She admitted. "A novelty. Just as you interest them by changing forms, I interest them by speaking prophecies they do not believe, from a God they do not worship… They may listen, but it seems they will never truly believe before the end…"

"…When exactly will that be? Time and date?"

"No. It is not an eventuality to prepare for." The oracle corrected her. "It is a punishment to avoid… The time, in particular, is not for us to know, for it is proper that we should live all our days in humility and repentance, not only our last."

"…What exactly will be the cause of the ship's crash?"

"Things well beyond you or I."

There was a strange silence in the lab for a few moments, while ███████ thought about how utterly _useless_ the prophet's words were. "So…" She assessed. "You are either unable or unwilling to furnish any specific details… When or how is still a mystery, so what's the point in even speaking of it? Why did you come to meet me in the first place if you're so set on being useless?"

"Because I was given a prophecy for you, ███████."

She tilted her head curiously.

"About your oath." The prophet said.

She froze, and looked hard into the seven eyes. _That oath?_ She wondered.

"Yes, _that_ oath." The prophet spoke slowly and carefully. "The oath to kill every last man, woman and child on this ship… That oath."

That oath had never been said aloud. The oracle had absolutely no way of knowing it. As an understatement, the oracle now had her full attention.

"You MUST forget all about it." The woman commanded her. "Repent of it. Move past it. Turn from it… It's… _Wrong._ Don't harbor such thoughts. Their deaths should be on you…" Something broke in the prophet's voice, and ███████ wasn't sure if it was due to fear or sadness _._ "This ship will crash and burn." She continued. "And everybody onboard will die in their own time, in their own way, just as all mortals must… You don't need to concern yourself with them. You don't need to bother. They _have_ their reward. All you can do is look to yourself, and to your own heart and soul…"

"…You lecture _me_?"

"I lecture all who will listen." The prophet pleaded. "Just as the Captain walks a selfish, violent path, and his dogmatic pride holds him to it, so you walk a path of deceit and murder to uphold your evil oath. You and the Captain are the same! So stubborn, so irreverent, beholden to nobody but yourself, and you will stick to it for no reason but that you conceive you must… And I fear that great and just harm will befall both of you before journey's end, for neither of you would ever dare admit even the tiniest error in your ways…"

"There IS no error." ███████ stood and hissed savagely. The prophet stood her ground. "There has never BEEN an error. Don't insult me by pretending to know me, or by pushing vague, misguided notions of morality on me. This ship and the people aboard have fallen afoul of me, and I will do as I please about it, and who is your 'god' to judge me?"

"My 'God'…" The prophet stated. "Is the foundation and the author of every moral law you scoff at. My God is the creator of totality itself, and he is not mocked by one of its denizens… But he is a just and loving God. He would heal you, in the moment that you turn to him."

The silence hung in the room for what felt like minutes, while ███████ locked eyes with the oracle. Finally she smiled. "We should do this again sometime."

"Ha. Well." The oracle smiled, even laughed just a little. "If you like… But before I go, the prophecy I was given for you…" She hesitated. "Is that you will survive the crash. And if you do not repent before then, a life of lonely pain awaits you."

"Bye-bye now."

"…Goodbye."

God was a fallacy and a deception. The powers that be were nothing more than powers.

And she was a power herself.

She had the power to survive.


	4. Council of Nightmares

Long ago, before they imprisoned ███████, before these creatures had ever arrived on her world, while she was still with him, something had happened. She never had a way to know before, but now she realized:

She was pregnant.

The scientists hadn't noticed it yet, but it was only a matter of time. They'd been watching her closely ever since she'd killed Dr. &R/\BJ, and there was no chance the child could escape their scrutiny for long. She could feel the egg growing inside her, taking up space, taking up nutrients, and more of both with every passing day. Soon they would notice. And when she gave birth, then they would _do_ something about it… Take it, kill it, clone it…

She couldn't let that happen. She had to do _something_ …

Perhaps if she could get out of the tube, she could pass the egg early, and somehow get it _inside_ one of the scientists; then the child could complete the rest of its development away from their testing, then eat him from the inside, and then… No, no, that wouldn't work. Soon as it burst out, they would just quarantine and take it…

She could begin shapeshifting so rapidly and so frequently that they couldn't track or detect its growth… No, she'd still have to give birth eventually, and then they'd take it…

No.

No, this is no place to have a child.

So she morphed and slimmed the umbilical link she shared with the child, to limit its nutrients and oxygen. With its growth stunted, her child's only method of survival was to instinctively form a hardened shell, and go into a state of deep dormancy.

One day, she would break down the shell and allow it to grow again. But not now. Not soon.

For now, her baby would fight for its life, just as she was.

They would survive.

* * *

"███████ wake up!" She awoke in the middle of the night to see Dr. cl;**4 rushing into the lab, his breath coming fast and ragged, and a wild smile on his young face. "It's time, ███████! It's really time!"

"What? What's happening?" She sat up.

"A mutiny!" He explained. "A mutiny! It's finally happening, we're finally doing it!"

"Really?!"

"Yes! The metalheads organized it; they're going to saw through the bulkheads to the bridge, the mice are going to disable the power systems, and it looks like we'll actually be able to get control from the Captain! ███████, you're gonna be going home!"

"T-that's great! What do you need me to do?"

"Uh… Okay." Dr. cl;**4 reached into his coat and produced an ID card. "Do you think you can mimic Dr. Zlfo]n's voice and tentacleprints well enough to fool a computer?"

She took on the head scientist's form, and showed him the patterns on the limbs.

"Wow… Okay, great! Awesome!" Now cl;**4 fished around his lab coat for the key to her containment tube. "There's a chance that the command crew could improvise the life support systems into a defensive weapon; increasing or decrasing the air temperature and pressure, pumping in toxic gases, that sort of thing. But Dr. Zlfo]n has authorizion to acccess the life support controls in sector 18. So it would _really_ help us if you went in there and lock down all the air-handling systems on the ship. Would you do that? I'll be there to walk you through it…"

"I can do that!"

"Thanks so much, ███████!" He opened the tube.

She killed him.

Then she drug the body with her out of the lab. When she found a quiet place, she cut open his body to examine the muscles and bones and nerves, see how the tentacles were structured and how the ligaments lay with the bones. In short order, she memorized and mimiced these same designs in her own body, so that any future attempts at mimicry would have flawless accuracy. Now that cl;**4's body had exhausted its usefulness, she sealed it in an airtight storage locker, so that nobody would ever discover what happened to him.

And then, while the mutiny filled the ship with chaos and confusion around her, she began to explore. She traveled the length, breadth, and circumference of the ship, learning the way the engines were layed out, the location of crucial components, the positions of passenger dorms, testing sectors, cargo bays, the routes through and hiding spaces within the network of life support tubes that linked everything… She learned many things.

However, after an hour or so, the sounds of fighting died down and security drones returned to their normal patrols, indicating that the mutiny had been successfully quelled. She returned to her tube as well, locked it shut and destroyed the key, so that there was no evidence that anything ever happened.

In the morning, the tired and weary scientists continued about their ordinary work in a defeated way. Nobody mentioned the mutiny, nobody brought up new plans, nobody stepped out of line once. And nobody asked where cl;**4 was. They must all think that he'd been killed in the fighting, which was just as well, really.

As for her, she'd learned everything her plans required.

Now all she had to do was wait for the prophet's vision to come true. Once the ship crashed, her designs would come to fruition.

And until then, she and her child would survive.

* * *

The months stretched on into years.

Elsewhere in the ship, she sensed tensions rising even further. The mutiny had been broken, but its causes had not. She heard the men speak more and more often of strange nightmares and visions. She watched the scientists lose their tempers and yell at each other over small matters. And sometimes, away down the halls, she heard voices crying out in insane, mad rants. Prophecies they sounded like, prophecies of warning and doom and damnation, like they'd all become prophets themselves in these dark days.

The people around her were getting crazy. And as she paced her tube for the thousandth time, she felt herself joining them, ever so slowly. She played little games with herself now, where she fought imaginary enemies, and sought to outwit them and kill them and devour them. The enemies she imagined for herself were always terrible and deadly, yet she always found a way to win…

This madness– She was imprisoned, even within her cage, imprisoned by the walls of her own mind and sanity, the walls that kept her imagination inside her head, kept insisting on the impossibility of her thoughts and dreams and ideas, limiting her mind and taking her hope… Late one night, her last thought before sleep was a powerful, burning desire to be free of this prison.

And then, in her dreams, something else entirely happened.

"WELL HEY THERE, HOURGLASS! WHAT'S NEW WITH YOU? ROUGH LIFE, AM I RIGHT?"

She frowned up at her new visitor. She'd seen many strange creatures before, but never anything quite like this… This was a level beyond and contrary to what she imagined. Something… Different. Something from beyond. Something far, far worse. "…Who are you?" She asked him.

"WHO, ME? WHY I'M A TALENT SCOUT!"

"…For who?"

"FOR ME!"

She thought about that for a moment. "…And what do you want?"

"AHH HAHAHAHAHA I'LL GET RIGHT TO THE POINT THEN! THING IS LADY, I'VE BEEN PUTTING TOGETHER A GANG OF FREAKS AND KILLERS, OUTCASTS FROM ALL THE LANDS OF REALITY, AND WE'RE FIXING TO SET UP A UNIVERSE OF OUR OWN! UNLIMITED POWER, GODLIKE STATUS, THE SHATTERING OF MORTAL SHACKLES, THAT SORT OF THING! IT'S A PARTY TO END ALL PARTIES, ALMOST A BILLION YEARS PROPHECIED! I SAW YOU IN HERE, AND THOUGHT I'D MOSEY ON OVER AND ASK IF YOU'D LIKE TO GET IN ON THE ACTION? YOU'D FIT RIGHT IN, I SWEAR!"

"I see." She nodded slowly. "…Why me?"

"WHY NOT? HAVE YOU SEEN THE REST OF THE CREW? THOSE SECULAR DULLARDS COULDN'T FIND THEIR CLOACA WITH BOTH TENTILLUM! THEIR LITTLE MINDS COULDN'T HANDLE THREE MINUTES OF THE PARTY I HAVE PLANNED! BUT _YOU_ … YOU'RE A SPECIAL CASE, AIN'T YA, HOURGLASS? IN THE TIME I'VE WATCHED YOU, YOU'VE KILLED EIGHT PEOPLE, HALF-STRANGLED YOUR OWN UNBORN BABY, AND NEVER ONCE TOLD THE TRUTH TO ANYONE! THAT'S THE KINDA BAGGAGE I'M LOOKING FOR IN A BUSINESS PARTNER!"

"Oh…?" He seemed to know quite a lot about her; more than she'd like. So she went along. "And what would a 'partnership' involve…?"

"OH, NOT MUCH, AT LEAST FOR NOW! THE QUESTION YOU SHOULD BE ASKING IS WHAT _I_ CAN DO FOR _YOU_!"

"…And what _can_ you do for me?"

"GIVE YOU FREEDOM!"

"I'll get out of this tube regardless. I have plans."

"AND HOW LONG WILL YOURS TAKE? SOONER OR LATER THEY'RE GONNA NOTICE YOUR LITTLE 'SURPRISE', AND WHAT'S TO STOP THEM FROM EUTHANIZING ONE OR BOTH OF YOU AT THE FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE? BUT ME? I'M PULLING A LOT OF STRINGS AROUND HERE, GORGEOUS. I COULD KEEP YOU SAFE."

"What do you want from me in return?"

"HEYHEYHEY I WASN'T THROUGH WITH MY HALF YET! FREEDOM FROM THIS TUBE IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP! THE REST INVOLVES FREEDOM FROM YOUR OWN LINEAR DESTINY! FREEDOM FROM FINITY! FREEDOM FROM SANITY AND LOGIC ITSELF! IMAGINE SINGULAR POWER TO SHAPE AND FOLD A FACTORIAL NUMBER OF DIMENSIONS! INFLUENCE OVER TIME, AND THE POWER TO MAKE ANYONE WHO EVER WRONGED YOU SUFFER FOR ETERNITY! ALL AT THE SNAP OF A FINGER!"

"That's what you want to do for me?"

"I DON'T THINK I STUTTERED PRINCESS! I'M OFFERING YOU GODDESSHOOD ON A PLATTER, AND ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PROMISE ME ONE ITTY-BITTY FAVOR! HOW'S IT SOUND?"

The being extended his hand. It sparkled with cold flame.

"…Are you hitting on me?"

"THAT WOULD BE A HOOT, WOULDN'T IT!"

She considered this for a moment, then extended her own hand. "Very well." She agreed. "Ensure the safety of me and my child, and then give me the power of a god. In return, I promise to be your ally for eternity, and do _anything you ask_."

"IT'S A DEAL!" But just before the deal was sealed, the being snatched his hand away. The cold fire extinguished, and he floated off, as his eye probed her carefully and slowly. "YOU KNOW WHAT LADY?" He said. "DEAL'S OFF. I CAN TELL WHEN I'M BEING LIED TO."

"Hmm?"

"TIME GETS AWAY FROM YOU, HOURGLASS! ENJOY THE CRASH!"

And she woke up.

What an odd dream.

Later that day, it finally happened: they discovered her child. They didn't kill it, or take it, or harm it, but they ran their tests, and they gave into paranoid ramblings as they spent the rest of the day yelling at each other.

And she realized that sanity wasn't a prison. Sanity was a fortress. Sanity was the strength she needed to stand on her own, and their madness was a wallowing pit of weakness which she regarded from a higher ground. Sanity was another step on the road she took to goddesshood in her own insidious way. She didn't need to hoodwink some eldritch horror. She was indestructible. She was strong. She needed no one else. She was ███████.

Life goes on. Survival goes on. And they would do it alone.

* * *

"███████, you asked for me?"

"Oracle, there is a being here. A being in my dreams. Do you know of what I speak?"

The oracle's eyes darkened. "I do."

"What do you know of it?"

The oracle hesitated. And when she spoke, it was with a haunting, slow tone of voice. "Sixty degrees that come in threes. Watches from within birch trees. Saw his own dimension burn, misses home and can't return. Says he's happy, he's a liar; blame the arson for the fire. If he wants to shirk the blame, he'll have to invoke its name. One way to absolve his crime, a different form, a different time…"

The lyric hung in the air, when for a moment it seemed as if all the crazy echoing sounds in the ship grew still and quiet to listen. ███████ considered the words, then smiled and asked rhetorically. "Is there anything more charming than an inscrutable mystery?"

To which the oracle answered with a gentle smile, her voice once again casual. "There is not."

She chuckled, and crossed her arms. "…Will this… Being… Be the cause of the ship's destruction?"

"Not the cause, but I do not doubt he plays a part in its instigation…" The oracle shrugged. "We have entered his territory. He has been given a certain power over us."

"A power which can be broken by sanity." ███████ pointed out.

"A power which feeds on insanity." The oracle corrected her. "But may only be broken by prayer. You are more defenseless than you know…" The oracle turned to exit the lab, but turned and spoke over her shoulder before she crossed the threshold. "It is not too late for the Captain to turn back. And it is not too late for you."

"…Why should I believe you?" She blurted. "God would surely not be stupid enough to trust me with something as dangerous as truth."

"He loves you too much to offer you less. You have only to bow and be healed."

"I shall never bow."

"And I am stupid enough to hope."

And the oracle left.

She would never bow.

She would survive.


	5. Warpath

And then one day, ███████ felt space itself warp and bend. She heard the rumblings echo through the walls. She heard the engines roar to life, then stall. She heard the klaxons begin to wail. She heard the First Mate screaming over the intercom for everyone to get to crash seats. She saw the scientists move for safety much too slowly.

And she knew it was finally happening. At last. At long, long last, the event so many years prophesied was coming to pass. She liquified her bones and curled herself into the tightest ball she could, bracing herself to the test tube walls with flexible, cushioning tendrils.

It happened.

By the time she finally pulled herself together and regained consciousness, it was all over.

Dead bodies littered the lab. The scientists had all been thrown to one end of the room where they lay with broken bodies, snapped necks, crooked tentacles, and still hearts. And every single other test subject in the tubes around her were dead too; at least, everything that had bones to break. She herself was fine though; very much shaken, and feeling sick, but she'd survived. She felt her egg, and it was intact.

 _They_ had survived.

She formed her entire body into a single muscly, spring-like limb, braced it against one wall of the tube, summoned all the power and strength she had, and then rammed herself full-force into the opposite wall. A tiny crack appeared. She took a moment to breath, then did it again. The crack widened. She did it one final time, the glass shattered, and then she was free.

Really, truly free.

One of the scientists in the room wasn't quite dead. He looked up at her, coughing blood and blinking in helpless delirium. "H-h-help… Help me…" He managed to gasp, when he saw her silhouette standing over him.

The time had come to fulfill her oath.

As she stabbed him, she started her count. _One._

She broke into the other tubes, and ate some of the other test subjects, until she was feeling restored. She destroyed a few drones that had been summoned to contain her. Once the way was clear again, she ventured out to explore and escape and conquer.

The ship was a fever dream of its former self, a desperate, chaotic, hopeless echo of forgotten glory. Walls were bent and crooked and warped, stained in places by blast marks or fluid leaks. The air stank of blood, burned plastics, and whatever chemical the repair nanobots were secreting in attempt to patch holes. The floor was covered in broken glass, thick as carpet in places, and it crinkled underfoot. Electrical lines spewed sparks. The malfunctioning life support chaotically shifted the humidity and pressure. Certain doors were wedged shut, certain hallways collapsed completely. Dead bodies were everywhere. Drones wandered the wreckage slowly and dumbly, like tanks rolling through the rubble of a fallen city, their treads struggling for purchase of the bricks and scaffold.

And as for her, she gazed upon with glee and vigor and triumph, for she stood as the victor. The champion. The _survivor._

There were a few other survivors, though. Some of them were trapped in their rooms, some were roaming the halls, some were too injured to move. She dealt with them one by one as she found them.

 _Two. Three. Four._ Slow going, but steady. _Eight. Nine. Ten._

Some of the other survivors had found each other, and joined into small groups, so that they could have some company as they sat scared in the dark. Whenever she found such a group, she would appear as one of them, and infiltrate them, learn from them the locations of food, water, and other survivors, and then kill them all, one by one. It was great fun seeing the escalation of their fear and paranoia as they slowly lost a guessing game of "who's-the-mimic".

 _Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four…_ She was highly efficient.

After a few days of this hunting, she began to gather food, water, tools and equipment, and made a nest for herself in the lower levels of the ship. Once she had that, she would occasionally drag choice survivors there. If anybody seemed to possess any special skills or knowledge, she would crucify them on her wall, torture and hurt them until she'd extracted it. And it _always_ worked. Officers, scientists, engineers, even hapless passengers, each was a wealth of information in his or her own way, and she learned many wonderful things.

Finally, in a stroke of luck, she found the head security officer, and tortured him for the drone control codes. Once she had them, she reprogramed the drones into mindless slaves, and instructed them to destroy everyone but her. Anyone that felt fear, anybody with any aggressive chemical markers at all, they were to eliminate. But so long as she stayed calm herself, they would ignore her no matter what form she took. She pressed the button and gave the order, and they _did_.

 _One hundred and seventy-nine. One hundred and eighty._ She watched the camera feeds from her new slaves, and never lost count.

Slowly and steadily, enemies and dangers disappeared.

Very soon now, everybody else would be dead. All the scientists, all the crew, all the passengers, every last intelligent lifeform in this universe who ever could have threatened her or her child, all of them gone, without a memory or a plea.

In honor of the occasion, she allowed her egg to grow again.

And one day, deep in her secluded lair, she finally laid it, and held it in the palm of her hand: a small, sky-blue sphere that contained all she had left to love in this universe. All that remained of him, all she'd fought so hard to save. She hid it and covered it in a warm place.

Now considering her greatest trials behind her, she began to think ahead, to grander plans beyond this miserable wreck. If she ever was to return home or move beyond this planet, she would need to either construct a new ship or repair this one, in whole or in part. Therefore, she would need access to the tractor beam-like gravity engines, for the heavy lifting and larger industry. That presented a problem, because the only way to directly override the safety locks would be to brave the boiling heat and radiation of the engine room long enough to make it to the controls.

Now she stood before the sealed blast doors (warm to the touch) and wondered how she might do that. It would require armor of some type, or some new form with no cells to damage, or perhaps a kind of remote control.

But then, at a message from the drones, she turned from the door and started for the ship's lower levels.

 _-7 lifeforms detected in sector 98, barricaded in room 98-18. No entry paths detected._ The message had read.

Seven lifeforms. The last group. The last bastion of life on this vessel. The last of her enemies. And, if her predictions were correct, the _Captain_ was among them.

She told the drones to stand down, for she'd been looking forward to this, and had in mind to handle these ones personally. Well… Most of them, at least. For the Captain himself, she had a more poetic end in mind. Since it was his pride that had doomed the mission, and his arrogance which had summoned all of fate's wrath, and his fault that everyone had suffered so, she arranged a subtle, cunning trap for him. She would lure him out of his shelter, and leave clues to lead him all the way back, right to her original prison tube. There he would read a message, realize his fault, trigger a booby trap, and die by the hands of his own drones. Thus would his misplaced thirst for adventure and heroics would be his downfall one last time.

She arranged the trap.

And it was so.

 _Two hundred and three._

Then she slipped past the barricade, and emerged in the darkened room to behold the last six survivors. That was it; only six. Six scared, starving, helpless creatures, all alone, looking upon her with immense fear, as if they were seeing the devil himself. To suit the climactic moment, she shifted into the form of a great beast, a creature with claws, and wings, and terrible teeth, flaming eyes, and a sharp, knife-like tail. Something out of darkest legend. The last six screamed and cowered before her.

With a hooked claw, she lashed out at the first. _Two hundred and four._

With the spear on her tail, she impaled the second. _Two hundred and five._

She bit off the head of the third. _Two hundred and six._

The fourth tried to save himself, tried to fight, tried to attack her with a broken chunk of pipe. _Two hundred and seven._

The fifth begged for mercy. "I'm SORRY!" He pleaded. "Y-y-you're the shapeshifter! I remember you! I-I spoke out for you! I told the Captain to let you go! I filed complaints about the things they were doing to you! I told them to leave you alone! I'm not your enemy! P-p-please! Please, I'm not your enemy… Please don't…" _Two hundred and seven._

And now the last. The very last. She spread her wings, and extended her claws, and preparing to finish her mission.

But fate had one last surprise in store for her, for she recognized the last one.

"███████." The oracle said.

At the sound of her name, she paused. It wasn't mercy, it wasn't hesitation, it was simply curiosity; perhaps the charlatan had come up with one last sermon of heavenly wisdom? One last attempt to change her ways? She wondered what could possibly be said, here at the end of life.

The oracle spoke. "In the name of the Creator God, I curse you."

"…Oh?" ███████ smiled, and cocked her head to one side. "You _curse_ me, do you?"

"I curse you." The prophet repeated, her voice steady and fearless. "███████, you have deceived every single person you have ever spoken to. You have killed every single person who has ever reached out to you, and you have spurned the God who offered you mercy. Therefore, I curse the name of ███████, that it may be forgotten. Because you are filled with lies, I brand you a liar. Because you are filled with bloodlust, I brand you a monster. From this day forward, nobody will ever know your name, or know that it belongs to you, because whenever they look at you, they will see nothing but a creature and a horror. You shall have no friends, you shall have no caring family, you shall have no home, and nobody will ever love you again. You shall walk this planet not as yourself, but only as a boogieman, a cryptid, a nightmare, a dragon, and a beast. I hereby blot out the name of ███████, and brand you 'the monster' forever."

The monsters stared at the prophet for a moment, and then scoffed, and opened her jaws to bite her in half.

"And a monster's end will surely meet you." The prophet said, closing her seven eyes.

 _Two hundred and eight._

 _"A monster's end"…_ For some reason the words stuck with her, tumbling in the back of her mind as she walked the halls of the empty wreck. _What did that mean?_

It didn't matter; she couldn't let it matter, not yet, because now was a time for peace. She had finally fulfilled her vow. She could finally enjoy a moment of rest.

But no sooner had she laid her head down to sleep, then her communicator beeped with another report from the drones: they'd found another group of survivors, a large group of nearly forty, who had escaped notice by fleeing to the hills outside the ship.

 _What… There are more…? Would it never end?_ She roused herself, and went out to meet this new last group. She found them just where the drones had said, she infiltrated them just like normal, began to kill them per routine…

But then… Then she met _them_.

ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg }Nᶌ.

They were the last survivors from a population of mechanical organisms, whose red eyes blazed with electric fire, and whose metallic skin shone like the armor of olden knights. But despite their fierce appearance, the two were neither warriors or scientists, merely a couple peaceful beings whom fate had plunged into matters much greater than themselves.

At first, she thought nothing of them, for metal could be killed just the same as flesh, and when their survival was on the line, she knew that these two would cower and run and turn paranoid, just like all the others. But then one night, right in the middle of her ordinary business, these two peaceful beings leapt to the defense of the others, and attacked her. They fought with a grit and a determination and a fearless resolve she was barely prepared to defend against. The blades in their hands and mouths whirled toward her, and one grazed her arm, drawing blood.

She fled into the trees and hid herself, while her heart thundered in her chest and blood trickled from the wound. It wasn't fatal, it wasn't serious, it was nothing but a scratch really, but for some reason, it seemed to her _symbolic_. She remembered the prophet's words. " _A monster's end…"_ And she finally realized what it meant. _Of course… Everybody knows that a 'monster' doesn't die from old age or infirmity or accident… No, everybody knows that the monster is SLAIN. It's a story as old as storytelling itself, that the great beast must be vanquished by the brave and noble heroes. Things may go one way or go another, but in the end, the heroes stand up to defend the innocent, and the monster always dies._

Despite all reason, something in the back of her head believed the prophet's words.

In the months that followed, it somehow, inexplicably proved true. ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg }Nᶌ invaded her inner sanctum to allow the other survivors to escape, singlehandedly bested the drones she sent for them, walked unharmed through blazing heat and ionizing radiation, and stole the control unit for the ship's last reactor. Then they established a home for themselves in a valley far away, and went there to live out the remainder of their lives in peace. The reactor control unit they hid, deep within a labyrinth of growing knives, where no fleshy creature would dare to tread.

It seemed like happily ever after, a fate as brash as any fairytale.

And as for her, she sat in her lair, and she knew that she had lost. Vanquished. Outwitted. _Thwarted._ A thousand cliché words for _beaten._

The prophet's curse was real.

But then a faint sound echoed through her lair, and past her despair. It was the faint noise of claws scratching at a rough surface. She turned toward her egg, and saw it rocking, from tiny movements within. _It's time!_ She realized. _It's finally time!_ Suddenly excited, she crouched down over the blue sphere to watch the moment of birth unfold. _Even after all that's happened, this is worth it… I have an ally. I have a child._ The noise of the claws slowed down. "Come on…" She whispered. "You can do it… Be strong…" After a moment, the noise stopped altogether, and the egg wasn't rocking anymore. "No, no, no, be strong, _please!_ " She begged. "I need you here… I love you, you can't give up now…! Please! Don't you know how hard life is? You stupid child, this is but the first of many trials! Life is hard, life is cruel, and everything will one day stand against you! Soldiers, scruples, kings and gods, they want to entrap you just like this egg! And if you aren't strong enough to be free, then you will die a prisoner! I cannot help you, least you forget that…! Please, please, _please be strong enough to be free...!_ "

As if it understood her, the noise picked up again, stronger and more determined this time. A crack appeared on the egg. The crack widened, and a piece chipped loose, revealing a claw beneath. And then more pieces chipped, and egg came apart, and her child stumbled out into the land of the living.

A son.

A son who was strong enough.

She held out her arms.

But when he saw her, he didn't crawl towards her. He didn't perk up at the welcome smell of his mother, he didn't imprint on her or mimic her face, like babies usually do. Instead he recoiled from her, and began to crawl toward the exit of her lair, as one might instinctively flee from a predator. He took the form of the jagged metal littering the floor.

For he didn't see his mother. He didn't see a person. Even he, a child too young to think, saw only a monster.

"You… You… Why, you fool!" She grabbed him and picked him up and screamed at him. "After all, after _ALL_ , even _YOU_ don't understand my ways?! Everything I've ever done had a reason! I did it for me! I did it for you! For us! Who told you it was wrong? Who told you it was 'evil'? Did 'God' tell you so?" She shook him. "Well God is mistaken! Because when it's down to survival, right disappears and so does wrong, and so does everything that makes you a monster, because sometimes _all you can do_ is that which is bitterly, savagely cruel! A 'monster', am I? Fine, then go! Leave me, see where morals and decency get you out there, you snobby little mistake!" She almost threw him in the direction of the exit. "Leave, Leave, LEAVE! And don't you EVER come back!"

He hit the wall, rolled over a few times, then managed to pick himself up on narrow legs, and crawled as fast as he could to escape her. The noise of his frightened squealing cries echoed back up the passage for a few moments, and then he was gone.

He was so young and scared that the drones would probably find his heartbeat and kill him.

 _Such are the ways._ She whispered silently as she stared after him. _Such are the ways for those who are weak._

She wished she could cry, but she couldn't. Wished to beg but she wouldn't. Wished to feel pain, but she didn't dare. And some small part of her wished she could pray, but above all things, that was utterly and completely impossible. For she had decided long ago that no depth, no hardship, no pain, _nothing_ could _ever_ drag her to her knees. There was no compassion, no grace, no favor God could give her, there was nothing that could ever bend her head in humility. If the monster would have help, the monster would provide that help.

So here, at the height of her despair, she prayed to herself.

And bizarrely, she received an answer.

A flash of light lit up her lair. When her vision cleared, she beheld a monster. Her heartrate picked up and her muscles tensed, for something about the creature filled her with a powerful sense of dread. Something about its crooked, hardened posture seemed savage and dangerous. Something about those eyes betrayed an absence of soul or mercy or feeling… And yet… Yet at the same time, the pose was identical to her own; and those eyes were the same she saw so often in the mirror.

This terrible thing was herself.

"Time travel exists." Her other self replied, in answer to all the unspoken questions. "I have come from 4 days in the future."

That was a lot to take in, despite the simplicity of the concept. She stared at this other self for a moment while she considered the claim. After a moment's though, she said. "…Prove it."

"Why?" The thing shrugged. "What else could I be? A dream? A hallucination? A vision the prophet sent from beyond her grave? Your mate, survived somehow and mocking your wretched current form?"

She considered that, and realized the options were just that limited. "Fine then." She hissed. "Tell me whatever it is you've come to tell me."

The monster showed her a pair of small, yellow machines. "Two incautious military men from a distant time will visit this crash site in 3 days' time." It informed her." Kill them quickly, and steal these: the devices they use to travel though time. Learn to use them. Master them. They are the tools which will allow you to gain power over all attackers, cheat your fate, and fix your mistakes."

She stared at her other self for several seconds, considering its strange choice of words. " _Mistakes_?" She finally scoffed. "First my mate, then the scientists, then the survivors, then the prophet and even God himself, and now even _you_?! Even _myself_?! Has it really taken only 4 days to change my mind, make me forget that my actions were never accidental? Is that enough time for fate to break my resolve? Have you so quickly forgotten your vows and your purpose and your strength? Forgotten who you _are_? Do I have to kill YOU too?!"

"You've become hysterical." Her future self growled lowly. "And I will defend myself if attacked. So calm yourself, and I will continue when you're ready."

She took a deep breath. Forced herself to slow down, and leaned against a wall. "Continue." She managed to snap.

"The actions you took, that I took…" The monster began. "They were necessary, and you were right to do them, but they did earn their just reward; you cannot undo the curse. This means that no matter what you do, you cannot love your son any longer, for he will never love you. His mind is wild and fearful at this age, and he cannot understand you, so it would bring both of your great harm if you were to raise him yourself… But one day, he may be old and wise enough to look past his fear, and join you as a valuable ally. Therefore, you must give him away to someone else; set him up for a good future. You must give him a pathway to greatness, put him somewhere where he can learn, and grow in intelligence. A place where he can conquer, and kill, and learn the bitter price of survival. You must put him among people who see him as a monster, so that he will inherit the curse as well. Only then will he understand. I have put much thought into the matter in the past 4 days."

She considered the proposal. "But… When you say to give him to 'someone else', who do you mean? Everyone on this planet is dead. And those who are left know me too well to do me that favor…"

"This planet has a race of intelligent natives." To demonstrate, the monster shifted into the form of a hairy, bony biped with narrow eyes, five-fingered hands, and pants. "In less than a thousand years they will reach this continent. A few thousand more, and they will discover and explore this crash site. Somewhere among them you will find an appropriate host for him."

"Very well."

The monster began to activate one of the time machines, to leave and continue her own business.

"Wait…" She held up a hand to stop her future self from disappearing. "With the time machine, will I be able to change my fate? Can I kill the heroes, and escape a monster's end? Will I finally be able to get the best of fate…?"

Her future self smiled. A savage, dangerous smile. "ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg }Nᶌ are dead." She declared.

And with that, the monster disappeared.

Things happened just as it had been said.

She found and killed the time travelers. She undid the hatching of her son's egg. She found a new and better host for him: StanFord Pines, a brilliant if foolish man of wealth and means, a fertile life that her son could assimilate as his own. So she buried the egg in a place where Stanford would be sure to find him, and left the child to its own devices.

And she did not consider him again.


	6. The End of Fate

Everyone from the wreck was dead; enemies, innocents, and heroes alike. Her mission had been completed. Her oath had been fulfilled. She was the last survivor of many terrible trials, now a genius, now a conquerer, now a time traveler, a creature and a power to be feared above all lesser life.

She had won. ███████ had won.

But what a terrible price it had extracted. Her soul had been cursed, and her name had been taken from her, such that even her own son could no longer love her, and she had to give him away. And she was left stranded, exiled upon the face of distant planet Earth, without any method or faintest hope of ever returning home.

And so, dear readers, she found herself utterly alone, and began a life of silence and pain.

With no purpose, and no plan, and no clear path forward to greater victories, she set off exploring.

She used the time machine, naturally.

So did decades of her own life stretch out over millenia of human life, as she jumped from time to time. She searched and she learned and worked and she killed through this world, all from the deepest, darkest shadows. Everything she did was veiled in secrecy; her disguises were numerous, her unwitting allies were countless, and the swelling seas of knowledge in her mind grew deeper and deeper.

But despite the great number of humans who came to surround her and inhabit her range of manipulation, the dreaded curse hounded her. Nobody who saw her or heard her would trust her, nobody became her friend, nobody ever once showed her kindness or care or compassion. Lonely and outcast she was, a wretched creature of the night. Whenever she imitated a friend or loved one, they would sense something 'off', and see past the disguise. They would run from her in the forest, they would attack her on the city streets. Words and stories of a nameless terror surrounded her murders and her actions, and she was known by names that were not her own.

… Speaking of which, _what was her name_?

She was shocked one day to realize that she couldn't quite remember anymore. So she buried her head in her hands, and bid farewell to that last remaining shred of humanity (for lack of a better word).

She was a person no longer. The curse had rendered her naught but a monster. Now and forever.

And nobody else now lived who could remember her name either. And even if they could, even if somebody, anybody could say it outloud or write it down, it wouldn't work. It would just be a noise, a funny sound, a nonsense fnord. It was less than a name, less even than a word, for words have meaning, whereas ███████ means nothing. Nothing at all. And when a noise has no meaning and no context and no depth, it becomes forgotten, passed out of memory like the useless garbage that it is.

And that is why it has been blanked out from this story.

What now was she to do?

Her future was a blank slate.

Well, no, not a blank slate, really… Not like a paper or a parchment or a document that could be written upon, but more like a rock, a slab, a hard chunk of obsidian. Something opaque and dark, a miserable little brittle something which was not only empty and formless, but at the same time impossible to change, mar, or inscribe. Her future was nothing.

And so it came to be, after many long and miserable years of shadow, she made a new oath.

With nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, and naught but her own wretchedness standing against the universe, she looked up into the sky and swore upon her own name that she would destroy this planet, and every flying, swimming, and crawling creature that walked upon it. And from the wreckage of the past and the future she would rise to greatness; from the highest heights of the future of medical science she would find a cure for mortality itself, from the furthest reaches of the past she would unlock the mysteries of the universe. She would become a god. And she would leave this planet behind, and she would create a new future, a better future, in that long-distant time when she returned to the stars.

She would do it.

She would rise up to a greatness beyond all other life. In doing so she would win the battle that was nature itself.

And by this victory she would spit directly in the face of God. These cruel fates he beset upon her would not hold her, and she would rise, while Earth burned behind and below.

She did not know so herself, but I can assure you that by this point, she was, indeed, utterly and completely insane. And I also must caution you against pitying her ailment, for there are some sicknesses that come as a payment.

And there was another of God's prophets who once said. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life…"

She had made her choice; she had given to the universe nothing but murder and lies and cruelty, even against those who meant her no ill. So the day was coming. The day when she would reap death, when the hunter would become the hunted, when justice would have its way, and when new heroes would arise to complete her story.

A monster's end would surely meet her.

* * *

And that day came.

* * *

She was somewhere about 2050 A.D. at the time, standing near the shore of the black lake, staring at a curious inscription on a stone. It appeared to depict a time and date, as well as a strange zodiac, of much the same type that carried the prophecy of the great being's defeat. But this one was peppered with many even stranger symobls. A buzzsaw, a spacecraft, and a crude depiction of the great eldritch being (of all things)… And then her eye caught on something else. Near the bottom… Was that an hourglass?

It was.

 _Hourglass._

She recalled that the great being had once called her that name. And it wasn't until much later that she'd stolen time machines that bore that symbol, and realized that she'd been brought to where she was by a strange destiny indeed…

 _Hourglass._

What did that mean? It was a clever, useful, beautiful device that was used to measure and understand time, in an era where nothing else could. Just as she had outwitted the crew, and survived and thought and understood far better than anyone around her, such was the way of the hourglass… But an hourglass is also a device which drains itself dry and then dies. It is a device that needs a keeper, needs a helper. It cannot work on its own, for if it does, it will surely die.

 _Hourglass._

She clicked her teeth angrily. The very name, the label, was a mockery of her own strength and self-reliance. It was a gest, a joke, a cruel pun focused directly at her, a warning that an hourglass's end would surely meet her. A warning that fate had played.

And somehow she got the feeling that the hourglass represented her on this zodiac too.

How strange and terrible.

And then, even as she stood there, it happened.

She met them.

* * *

It transpired with no more ceremony than a flash of lightning.

Out of nowhere, she had to dodge a rain of bullets, duck some kind of energy blast, and kick away a grenade that had landed at her feet. It exploded in the air 3 meters from her head, and a shower of shrapnel cut into her side. She had to use the time machine about 5 times just to find a version of that first 10 seconds where she wasn't mortally wounded.

Now she was fighting with her hands, now cuts appeared in her arms, as if from an axe. Now a perfectly-placed blade wedged in her ribs. Now they drove her out of the trees, into the blinding sunlight and the rippling grass where there was nowhere to hide. Now she heard the roar of a jetpack, and she saw its wearer use the thrust to drive a powerful kick into the side of her head. Now as she nursed a concussion, she took the form of a frog-like creature to leap away, but they were in front of her. They were around her, they were behind her, they were everywhere, they saw her every action coming. The grass caught on fire from the lasers and the jetpacks, and began to blaze.

She saw her attackers.

They were clad in solid black. And it wasn't clothing, it was armor; solid pieces of artificial exoskeletons which clanged like metal when they struck at her, and whirred like motors when they moved. For a moment she wondered if these knight-like figures were ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg }Nᶌ returned from the dead.

But no; ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg }Nᶌ had been farmers; peaceful people forced to make a stand. _These_ on the other hand… These were warriors. Warriors to match and surpass her own skill and training, wielding weapons and techniques she'd never dreamt of.

But not just warriors either. These weren't the hesitant, lumbering patterns of soldiers fighting an anonymous war, or of mercenaries just doing a job for money. No, these were determined and ferocious movements of bitter enemies, enemies who saw it as _personal._

 _Oh God._ Despite herself, she knew exactly who these were. _These are the heroes sent to slay me._

She barely escaped that first time.

* * *

The second time was mere months later, and they attacked her in her own home. She was more prepared that time, but came even closer to death.

This second battle was the first time she got a good, clear look at the attackers. They were human, of that she was sure. Human adults, though she couldn't tell the age, race, or gender past the helmets. And although they often used time travel to attack multiple times at once, so that it occasionally seemed like there were dozens of them, she saw clearly this time that there were only two.

Only two warriors. Two humans.

A tall one and a short one.

* * *

The third time was years later, and this time she really _was_ prepared. She'd searched the whole world, East to West, North to South, beginning of history to its end, for fierce and terrible forms to take. She'd found and mimicked muscle-bound cats with teeth like swords, terrible lizards with jaws that could crush a car, venomous serpents that could hypnotize prey, flying dragons spewing fire, slender demons with arms as strong as trees, giant spiders, swarming masses of muscly tentacles with no center and no organs, eldritch creatures with all-seeing eyes and claws that could reach between atoms, snapping worms that could move as fast as a cracking whip, and burrow into the skin through the smallest crack. The things humans fear; the things humans have heard about but never seen; the greatest monsters of oldest legend.

So when the warriors once again found her, she attacked bravely. But somehow they were prepared too. The short one seemed to be intimately familiar with every single monster, know every weakness of every form. And the tall one seemed to be prepared with every weapon and tactic, and shuffled through techniques as easily as flipping channels. The warriors were communicating via radio, so she never heard their voices, only saw them moving together as one, as if the fight were a dance they'd been practicing a lifetime.

She came out of that third fight literally smaller, having lost entire sections of her body mass when she was attacked while changing forms. She was dizzy from loss of blood. Half her body was numb from missing nerves. She could barely keep her bones solid enough to stand. She felt as weak as a newborn, and she'd accomplished nothing but surviving for one more day.

 _The heroes are going to win._

* * *

The fourth time, she used every single technique her time machine could ever offer. She was before them, she was after them. She surrounded them, she was in their midst, there were dozens of her. She knew their every move ahead of time, mapped and planned out the fight before and after, scouted and watched and memorized every detail. She studied them until she could mimic them to a fault, until she knew them better than they knew themselves.

But even _that_ was no use, for they were either familiar with these tactics, or simply _fated_ to win. She couldn't trap them in an unstable paradox or a loop, she couldn't form a bootstrap paradox against them.

They beat her at her own game. And she knew then and there that God was the God of time. He would not be beaten at his own game, and neither would the heroes he had chosen to punish her.

* * *

The fifth time was different, however.

The fifth time, she stayed in the shadows. She did not wait for them to seek her out. Rather, _she_ sought _them_ out. That is, she searched for their time and place of origin, in order to kill them as children or newborns, before they could ever grow up to be themselves.

She started with the only concrete thing she knew about them: their combat suits. The armor utilized time-technology of the 20ꓶ1st century, the era of The Baby's rule.

So that's just where she went.

She had to be exceptionally careful in those times, for most time-citizens were registered and tagged by their cyborg components, and the local law enforcement was well-equipped for dealing with time-traveling non-humans, so she could be caught easily. But nonetheless she survived and eluded the law, eventually managing to infiltrate gangs and form ties in the black market. After nearly a month of chasing rumors and whispers, she found what she was looking for: a missing shipment of military-grade time-tech that the time-rebellion had stolen.

The time-rebellion. A ragtag group of men and women who operated in utmost secrecy, set on liberating the world from The Baby's rule. Some of their members were said to have never been time-citizens at all, but were merely those who decided to stand up against injustice in a faraway land, recruited from all corners of time and space.

She found their camp, and she sat and she watched, and finally she spied her two enemies, strolling out of a tent, examining their newly-acquired armor.

She leapt out of hiding, and fought them for the first time. That is to say, _she_ had fought _them_ like this before, but _they_ had never engaged her, at least not like this.

The element of surprise allowed her to get the best of their inexperience. They didn't have their tactics down quite as well as they could, didn't know what to expect, weren't familiar with all her forms, and, of course, they had never operated the armor before. After a brief melee, she was able to disable the short one's jetpack and toss him into the trees, so that she could tackle the tall one, and shove her fingers beneath that helmet.

The seals cracked, a linkage snapped, and the helmet flew off.

Red hair unfurled around the freckled face of a 30-year-old human woman.

"WENDY! GET OUT OF THERE!" Hollered the short one.

The tall one fired her jetpack, and flew out of harm's way, letting out a savage kick and returning a burst from her machine gun as she did.

███████ ducked to the side, activated her time machine, and fled backward through time as rapidly as she could. And as she fled, she smiled, for she'd gotten what she'd come for:

A name and a language.

Wendy. English.

* * *

With a little research, she found that the name 'Wendy' is an English name, quite rare until it was popularized in 1911 by the book 'Peter Pan'. It dwindled in popularity during the 21st century, until it was all-but unused and archaic by the 22nd. And the accent of the short warrior specified a country and region.

Western America from 1910 to 2180 was her search range, and she scoured it high and low.

It turns out that she didn't have to scour far; in fact, it turns out that this entire time, the troublesome heroes were from Gravity Falls; the small town which had sprung up a few miles West of the crash site. And this entire time, they were the relatives of Stanford Pines. They were among the enemies of her son.

Their names were Dipper Pines and Wendy Corduroy, and she watched them and their family singlehandedly thwart an extradimensional invasion by the great being, in the year 2012.

She wanted to kill them at earliest convenience, but she paused, for open combat had never worked before… Perhaps she herself was fated to be beaten by them. Perhaps destiny would not allow her victory… But her _son_ , on the other hand… Perhaps fate would allow her _son_ to kill them.

So she went to find him.

And she found him. Trapped, and sealed away like some pathetic animal, locked in a tube of glass much like the one she'd spent so many years of her own life within. But unlike her, her son had no plans. He had no hope, he had no courage and no dream, and nothing at all to hang onto except his pain… He was weak. He was pathetic. He was a failure.

As she pressed the control to thaw him, she remarked. "You were made for so much more…"

Then she made her way back down to her original lair, and waited for him to find her.

She waited for a week and a day.

* * *

Eventually he found her. And she gave him a time machine. She bid him end his enemies, and so he went and he killed Dipper Pines. And as for her, she found herself face-to-face with the other. Wendy Corduroy, the girl who might one day have become the woman Wendy Pines. One of those heroes of destiny, one of those chosen few, one of those fearless, indestructible warriors. And so ███████ tortured her with a passion and a hatred, and she dug into the depths of the girl's mind, trying to find where such strength and destiny had come from, longing to know the secret of how this girl had received fate's blessing. _Why have you found peace and happiness and greatness, when all I've found is pain?!_

It was a silly question, really. And she never did receive an adequate answer.

Instead…

Instead she awoke the previous morning, with no memory of the events that had transpired, no clue, no hint that anything had ever gone according to plan, nothing but a faint stinging pain in her right eye, and a powerful sense of déjà vu, an impossible and vague knowledge that somehow, she had failed. Somehow, the heroes had won again.

And instead of two time machines, now she only had one.

* * *

In a rage she stormed out of her lair, and took the form of a fierce winged creature, swooping out of the ship and over the treetops in a blaze of fire, flying SouthEast. Back to the strange zodiac symbol where she'd first met these warriors. Back to the black lake. Back to where it all began.

 _THEY must have written this!_ She thought, as she landed next to the symbols. _They must have drawn this for ME! They want me to find them!_

So, in a fury, she jumped backwards to the date that had been written beneath it. Then, finding herself at the date, she warped to the exact time, spreading her claws as she landed, in preparation for whoever and whatever she may find. It didn't matter if they were here wating for her at full power; she had had enough suspense, she had had enough waiting and preparation, too many years of nagging, cancerous doubt. Now, she just wanted to see how it ended. If this was the ending, then she would find out how it ends.

But… She didn't find at all what she'd expected.

"Hello mother."

She froze, shocked to silence, and turned around.

And she saw a thing that looked, to all appearances, like a perfectly human, middle-aged man. He was wearing a hoodie and some jeans, and he had a scruffy little black beard and a crooked nose… But the pupils of his eyes were poorly-adjusted, and he had a strange smell about him, enough small hints to leave no doubt for the claim behind his greeting.

"Who are you…" She said.

"Um…" He shrugged. "…My name is Sam. And… I'm your son. I accompanied them from the future to tell you-"

"Who have you become…" She clarified, interrupting him. "And what have they done to you…"

Sam frowned.

"I gave you a _future_." She told him, sorrow in her voice. "I gave you the fertile ground you needed to grow powerful and strong… I made you great… And what did you do with it? What have you become? A puppet of theirs, a fool, a court jester, willing to dress up as one of them, willing to wander at their direction and send their messages…?"

"You didn't give me a _future_." He told her. "You gave me _nothing…_ Mother, you gave me nothing at all, and you made me nothing but a monster. You are the reason they hated me and attacked me for so long… All it would have taken was a hint of generousity from you, a kind word with Stanford, a chance to let me learn to speak before I was of the dangerous age… I never needed to be the monster that you made me."

She stared at him, willing him, daring him to continue.

"It took until I was thirty-six years old for Stanford to offer me grace, but offer it he did. And they tamed me and cared for me and forgave me… They took time for me. They fashioned me into a feeling creature. They gave me more for me than you ever did; fairness, dignity, and goodwill. I turn fifty-one tomorrow, and as I do, I owe more to my _captors_. To my ' _enemies_ '… Than I ever did to you… My _own mother_ … I know you're not too stupid to understand that… But can you really be so evil?"

"Hmm." She glowered. Ha… And what now." She scoffed. "You all wrote the wrong time on the stone, so that I would come here and talk to you first… You want to convince me. Make me 'see reason'. 'Turn from my evil ways'. I've heard this word before, a long time ago: you want me to spare my own enemies…"

"But why are they your enemies anyway?" Sam asked her. "Because they attacked you? Because they tried to kill you first? Ha. Remember that from _their_ perspective, _you_ tried to kill _them_ first… It's a circle of violence. A circle of hate that you may entirely deserve, but which is still inherently unfair in the grand scheme of things… You hate each other because fate made you do so. But _me_ … _I myself_ have a legitimate quarrel with you, mother. I speak in the name of everyone you have ever hurt and lied to and ruined; I speak as your firstborn son that you abandoned to the savage wolves. I speak as your just and deserved enemy, and… Mother… I challenge you to a duel to the death."

She took a step toward him.

"And." He added. "My allies… They are nearby. You are time-surrounded. So if you use your time machine, then they will arrive and use theirs, which will be the beginning of another time fight, one they will not let you escape from, a fight you know you cannot win… So _ours_ will be a plain and simple mortal fight. Tooth and claw and blade, one on one… The winner shall walk away, to continue their life as they will, and the loser will finally perish… Do you accept?"

She stared into his eyes, with a hardness and a bitterness and a cruelty fashioned within her by many years of evil. She looked into his eyes with a stubbornness and a pride and a hate that had seldom known equal in this world.

But he met her gaze with a hardness of his own. A hardness that threatened hers, that challenged not only her person and her spirit, but every evil truth she'd built her worldview upon. He wanted her to die, not to become stronger than her, not because she was a threat to him, but because he was right, and she was wrong. And wrongness deserves death. It was a will and a determination that he had learned from heroes, and had made his own.

"This is another kind of strength…" She mused out loud. "Perhaps… Perhaps you could have been good for something after all."

"Perhaps I still can."

"No… Today you will see the morals you learned come all to naught, as you die for them."

"But I won't die." He told her. "…You will." And his voice had a sincerity and a dread to it, that made her know he'd already seen it happen.

She took a ready stance, and shifted into a form suitable for battle. "I shall not bow." She told herself.

He stared at her for a moment, then took on a fighting form himself.

"I'm sorry, mother."

And she considered it a most perplexing and tragic fate; that the one hero destined to finally, truly slay the monster would be its own bastard child.

"…I'm sorry, son."


End file.
